


what do you want me to say?

by AlphaBanana



Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Book 3 Spoilers, F/M, post-bakery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:16:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29848317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlphaBanana/pseuds/AlphaBanana
Summary: “I’d rather have a broken arm than a broken heart. “ ~Christie Brinkley
Relationships: Female Detective/Mason (The Wayhaven Chronicles)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	what do you want me to say?

**MASON**

Mason hasn’t seen Riona since the bakery – she’s made sure of that.

She’s either stayed with Tina, or been busy at work, or asked Nat or Felix to come (and _that_ stings for reasons he doesn’t understand and never has).

Until today. Nat has made sure that Riona has no choice but to see him today. (Were Mason a different man he might scowl at the thought of Nat meddling like that, but the overwhelming need to see Riona consumes that momentary discomfort and burns it to ashes.)

So now they are sat in her shitty, little car, driving back to her flat in a stony silence that feels so different to normal. Normally, silence is a balm for every sense, far beyond just his hearing, but this is—

This feels like something crushing his chest, like a tonne weight, and it’s all he can do to stare out the window, grit his teeth and try not to let her frantic pulse beat him to death.

She drives unnecessarily fast, almost _dangerously_ fast (and Mason no stranger to speed), and the minute she pulls up she is out of the car and striding to the front door of the flats, hips swaying.

(He hates that he still notices that. Isn’t sure whether or not he wants to _stop_ noticing that.)

The clearest sign of what is about to happen comes when she fumbles her keys, lets them slip beneath her fingers. Instead of her usual response (it is hardly the first time he has made her drop her keys) of lowering to the floor slowly, with a sultry smile and a glance to check he is watching…she scowls, staring fixedly at the floor before hissing _fuck_ sharply enough to make him flinch.

He follows her into her flat quietly, slowly, feeling somehow as if he is prey in a net, being drawn in and lured to his doom.

“You ok, sweeth—”

“Don’t call me that.” Riona’s voice is still sharp, but she sounds tired somehow – and Mason half wants to cross the room to her, turn her face to his and look at her but—but that sharpness gives him pause, makes him freeze in place as she continues.

“Don’t _lie_ to me.”

 _What?_ “I—Sw— _Riona_ —” Mason is not sure what he babbles, _how_ to babble as she glares at him, hazel eyes flaring golden in the sunset streaming through the windows – and he opens his mouth to say something (isn’t sure what, exactly), when she throws her hands up to stop him.

“ _Don’t_!” And that one word is enough to unlock something visceral, almost _primal_ in her, words fighting each other to be hurled at him.

“You don’t _get_ to—I don’t want to—” Turns away from him and says something muffled, then, that he isn’t even sure is words so much as a wail. All he knows is that he does not _understand_.

Realises with a quiet horror that she is crying softly, shoulders quaking as she faces the sink – but before he can go to her, she picks up a bowl and throws it against the wall and _screams_ , an ear-splitting howl that pierces his rib cage. All he can do is watch with a quiet fascination as the perfect façade she has managed to maintain through Murphy and the Maa-alused and the bounty on her head crumbles in front of him, and she is storm-wild, eyes flashing and chest heaving and _fuck_ , she is _stunning_ —

Realises that he’s staring, transfixed. “Riona—”

“Don’t—” This time when she starts to speak, she has to break off when she slams her palm against the solid stone kitchen counter, and they both hear the crack before she seems to feel it.

Hazel eyes widen and a small, broken gasp leaves her, breath shallow as she starts to cradle her hand. _Both_ of their hearts are beating fast enough to blur into one continuous thrum as he reaches for her hand and she _flinches_.

“Don’t—it _hurts_.”

It isn’t immediately clear what she’s talking about.

“I—”

“I have to go.” Her breathing is still shallow as she passes him to grab her bag as best she can.

“Let me—” Mason might have to move the driver’s seat back, but he can at least drive her to a hospital, or the Warehouse, or—

“ _Don’t_.”

And with that she’s gone, phoning Rebecca to ask for an Agency SUV to pick her— _her_ , not _them_ —up.

**RIONA**

If the ride from the Warehouse was awkward, the ride to the _Facility_ , with her side pressed flush against Mason’s in the back of an Agency SUV, is _excruciating_ , far beyond the pain in her hand.

Stupid. So very, very stupid.

( _Don’t worry your pretty, little head about it, gorgeous_.)

It takes Riona a few moments to blink the image of Bobby away, long enough for Mason to have stood already and offered her his hand to guide her out of the SUV. She shies away (because even though the only expression on his face is concern, Bobby knew that touch was the sweetest kind of weapon to use against her, and she will not be so vulnerable again).

“Riona!” Before she can dwell too much longer on the past, she is dragged back into the present by Rebecca rushing up to her, jaw tight enough with worry to make Riona wince. Should have called an ambulance.

“Riona, what—” Riona does not miss the accusatory look Rebecca throws at Mason, but she is too angry to defend him—

…no, she’s not.

“It was stupid – I misjudged the distance, that’s all.” Plants a kiss on Rebecca’s cheek that stuns her into silence (for all that Rebecca is taller than Riona, Rebecca insists on wearing unspeakably practical flats, which Riona uses to her advantage) and strides ahead, trying to put distance between herself and Mason.

“Riona, are you—” Rebecca frowns, seeming to sense the change in atmosphere (she still watches Mason out of the corner of normally warm, rich brown eyes).

(For most of Riona’s childhood, Rebecca could not bear to look Riona in the eyes, the golden-hazel that she had inherited from her father. Too much, too painful.)

Riona fancies that she now understands how even just a look can be painful. Every tilt of her head toward Mason, the motion still instinctive even now, cuts like a knife.

For his part, his lips are pursed as he stares straight ahead – he can almost definitely hear how her heart is still racing from a blur of something like panic, and there’s a push-pull feeling in her heart, _she wants him here, she wants him gone_ —

“I’ll wait outside.” Mason’s shoulders are so tense they are practically about his ears, and she remembers his senses—then feels her own shoulders tense at the fact that she still cares about _him_ , even after—

“ _Fine_.” Spits the word out, feels it leave a sour aftertaste even as she follows Rebecca to Elidor.

According to Elidor, who looks worried for her even if he is tactful enough not to say it in front of her mother, it’s a simple enough break – Riona only wishes that diagnosing the persistent pain in her chest could be so simple.

…it really is quite simple.

**MASON**

Normally deft fingers shake around a cigarette (he dislikes the taste of them now, ashen and somehow dead, because they mean that—)

She’s in the best possible place, Elidor is _literally_ magic – and she’s made it very fucking clear that she doesn’t want him here. ( _That_ twists in his stomach, the dying throes of indifference)

He should go. But—

 _But_.

Instead, he lingers like a shadow, dodging various doctors as he hovers waiting for news. Hovers long enough that the hustle and bustle dies down and Riona sits alone with Rebecca.

The benefit of his senses (if it can be called a benefit) is that he can hear them as clearly as if he were in the room with them, and he can’t help but try to picture them.

“What happened?” Rebecca’s voice is low, slow and measured as always, yet it seems to teeter on the edge of being motherly – something Mason has never really heard before.

“Doesn’t matter.” Riona’s voice, though, is still stretched tight, brittle enough to break just as her bones did.

(Something in him _hurts_ at the thought, and he feels something flicker behind his rib cage.)

“You came here _willingly_ ,” Mason can practically _feel_ Riona’s wince at Rebecca’s observation, feels his own lips curve in a small smile at the thought even as Rebecca continues, “with a broken hand. I think that _matters_.”

“I—” Riona falters then, voice quavering a little, and Mason is frozen solid by something he can’t quite grasp – feels it flutter away when he tries to reach for it.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Is it to do with Bobby?” Rebecca sounds _vicious_ then, enough to make the hair on Mason’s neck rise, even as the sheets rustle as she moves closer to Riona.

“You said you’d tell me if—”

“It’s not Bobby.” Mason feels a spike of rage at the thought that the two women had had to have that conversation before, at what that might mean ( _next time he sees Bobby fucking Marks, he’ll_ —).

“Then what was it? It’s not as if you got it in a fight.” Mason can practically _hear_ Rebecca roll her eyes, can picture it clearly – because that _is_ something Riona learned from her mother, even if she can’t fight for shit and she doesn’t put the fear of God in people.

(Well, until today.)

“ _Thanks_ , mum.”

“You _know_ what I mean.” The two of them tut at each other for a moment, but the pause that follows _stretches_ , spreads out and envelopes both of them, _all three_ of them, and for a moment, Mason considers moving away—

“Is it to do with Mason?”

 _Shit_.

Rebecca’s voice is low, slow, measured as it is when she is thinking through the details of a mission, even as Riona gives a ragged sigh, which Rebecca sees as as good an answer as any.

“You and him are—”

 _Fuck_.

“Just—we’re _just_.” Another sigh, and that one cuts deeper than the first one, _his_ words in _her_ mouth scrape across his senses, sound _crueller_ than he ever—

“I didn’t want anything too involved after Bobby. So we’ve been—we’ve just been—for a few months now.” Any other time, Mason might have laughed at the idea of Riona being squeamish about sex, but now he drifts a little closer to the door, moving as quietly as he can.

“So, not long after we—”

“Not long after you came to town, right.”

“Hmm.” That _hmm_ is always a bad sign from Rebecca, but Mason focuses instead on Riona’s voice, quavering slightly under the weight of Rebecca’s attention.

“And he was—we were _both_ very clear that it was just—”

“It’s ok.” Rebecca sounding _soothing_ would have been ground-breaking at any other time but here, _now_ , it is barely the third most important thing that Mason tracks with his senses.

“That it was just _fucking_ , but I don’t think I can.” Riona sounds _lost_ , even as Mason feels something heavy settle on his tongue, at the back of his throat, pushing down into his lungs as he crushes the cigarette between his fingers and feels the tobacco scatter even as grey eyes bore holes into the opposite wall.

When Rebecca breaks the silence, her voice is still soothing, and a little quieter as she shifts on the bed, the whisper of skin on skin a surprise – Rebecca normally shies away from contact of any kind. Another way that she and Riona are different.

“And there’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with wanting to or thinking you could, and nothing wrong with learning more about yourself. It’s alright, pet.”

The pet name seems to unlock something in Riona, because now she is crying, great heaving sobs that tear at him like meat hooks until they’re muffled by Rebecca’s shoulder (? his senses are going haywire and he doesn’t know why and he wants it to _stop_ ), though even then they smart like pin pricks.

“It’s alright.” Rebecca’s mantra seems to sooth Riona, and when Rebecca leaves the room after a little while Riona’s pulse has settled into its usual, hypnotic rhythm.

The same hypnotic rhythm which means that Mason does not move in time to avoid Rebecca when she steps into the hallway.

“How long have you—”

“Like she said. Since the first patrol.” Mason nearly growls when he realises she probably meant _how long have you been standing there_ , that he could have lied, but—but there’s hardly any point, not with Rebecca, and not about Riona.

“She never said.” And _that_ seems to bother Rebecca more than the thought that her subordinate has been fucking her daughter for months, and Mason lets his tone sharpen for a moment on Riona’s behalf.

“She didn’t think she needed to.” Rebecca doesn’t answer that immediately, instead studies him with sorrel brown eyes that are just as piercing as Ava’s, just as deadly.

“And you—”

“I told Haley we were just—” Waves his hand vaguely (and the thought that _he_ is squeamish about having sex with Riona would be laughable if it weren’t with Rebecca) until Rebecca nods in understanding.

The pause stretches out longer than should be humanly possible, until Rebecca opens her mouth once as if to speak, snaps it shut, and then tries again.

“She’s calmed down a lot. It would be a good idea to—”

He’s already moving.

**RIONA**

Riona isn’t sure that she likes Rebecca comforting her. It all feels a little _too little, too late_. But there was something soothing about having her mother’s hands in her hair again that lets her overlook the years of distance. And now that she’s gone, the little room feels colder, somehow. Shivers and huddles into herself.

She turns a little to turn the bedside lamp off and freezes at the sight of Mason silhouetted in the doorway. Hates that her heart skips a little at the sight of him.

“You should still knock.” Her grumbling is half-hearted at best, but he knocks quietly on the door frame all the same, mercury eyes still fixed to hers as if to wait for permission. Wordlessly assents, waving him in with her good hand, wincing a little when she lays the broken one on the bedsheets.

Stupid. So _fucking_ stupid.

Mason doesn’t miss the grimace (he _never_ misses any of her cues, and before she might have thought that he knew her body better than she did – still thinks that, if she’s being honest), and crosses to where Rebecca had sat. Sits gingerly, as if he is waiting to be told to _go fuck himself_.

“How do you feel?

 _Good question_.

For a moment, the emotions roil in the pit of her stomach, thorns clawing at her throat. For a moment, she wants to scream at him, wants to kiss him, wants to kill him.

She does none of those.

“Fine.”

“ _Don’t_ lie to me.” Cold anger strikes like a whip, mortifyingly tears start to prick at the corners of her eyes, and before she knows what is happening she is crying _again_. She hasn’t cried this much since _Bobby_ , and—

But Bobby never sat gingerly on the bed next to her, never wrapped his arms around her to absorb her sobs (because that is what they are now, noisy, blubbering things that choke her as they spill out), never rubbed comforting circles into her back. This _is_ different, in ways good and bad. Bad, because it is _very_ clear that it is different from Bobby, in all the right ways, in all the ways she had ever craved and hoped for. Good…good in ways that it wouldn’t do to dwell on now.

After a while, she pulls back and wipes roughly at her tears, missing the way he smiles slightly at the sight.

Riona’s vision is still blurry when next he speaks, voice rough with something she is too tired to parse. “You good?”

And it is weak, _so_ weak, but she has denied herself too many things in her life to deny herself this as well – lets him taste her tears on her lips, feels his groan ripple through her skull even as he holds her to him (and there is something so pathetic about how her mind fills in the blanks, how it almost seems like he does not want to let go, even when they break apart and he presses his forehead to hers).

Riona kisses him again instead of answering (she is tired of lying to him, but afraid of what will happen if she does not – rejection is one thing, but—), and this _does_ remind her of the bloody bakery, tongues intertwined as if they were trying to join into one person (as if they already _had_ ), intense but softer this time, savouring each other.

When they break apart this time, there are no ragged pants, no gasps for breath. Instead a soft hum, call and response, that they pass between them like a torch, and it warms.

(Maybe it burns a little, too.)

When Riona feels able to open her eyes, Mason still looking at her, studying her, and so she nods, buries her face in the crook of his neck to feel _close_ (and it is still not close enough). He jerks a little but then sighs, and there is something deeper in that satisfaction that—

 _No_. No wishful thinking, or thinking about the future, or anything else. Sooner or later they will be sent on another mission – and even if they’re not, he’ll tire of her. Everyone else has.

For now, though, his arms are firm around her, skin warm to the touch as she grazes useless fingertips over his cheekbone, watches long lashes flutter shut at the sensation and admires him, strong features softened by the low light in the corridor.

This is fine. It is all she needs.

(No, it isn’t.)


End file.
